Pages

Sunday, October 06, 2013

P. Cruz Spaghetti

I remember wearing pigtails as a little girl and loving
it.I loved the way my hair bounced and
swished from side to side whenever I walked.I thought it was quite the thing.I would carefully deliberate on what color hair ribbons to wear and
smugly thought myself as cute as a pup.Really, as a curly-haired girl in a country where most everyone had
gleaming straight locks,
a moment of bright-eyed, optimistic hair-love is truly a treasured memory.

As I watch my daughter today, bounding ahead of me, with
those two very same pigtails, ringlets bouncing jauntily, it throws me back to
those carefree times of childhood, when everything was exciting and my
years-long battle with my wild locks was yet far in my future.I smile and thank God that I have the chance
to revisit, and re-experience, those rose-colored nooks and crannies of time,
all through this spunky little package C and I have been gifted with.

C remembers this spaghetti. If not technically from his childhood then
from the time when he still lived with his mother. P. Cruz is the street where he lived and thus
we’ve dubbed this P. Cruz Spaghetti. I
hardly ever use mince in pasta sauce (except for meatballs), but to recreate
C’s homely favorite, I break my own rules.

P. Cruz Spaghetti

500 grams spaghetti or linguine, or any other long pasta
of your choice

Olive oil

1 white onion, chopped

8 cloves garlic, minced and divided

500 grams ground sirloin

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

250 grams fresh button mushrooms

1 kilo canned chopped tomatoes

1/4 cup water to rinse out the can

1 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste

2 teaspoons sugar

Salt and pepper

- Prepare the pasta as per package instructions in
well-salted water.Keep some of the
pasta cooking water aside in case you need it.

- Heat a heavy-based pot over medium-high heat.Add a couple of generous swirls of olive
oil.When the oil is hot add the onions
and half the garlic and sauté until the onions are soft and translucent.Add the Italian seasoning and stir, sautéing
until the smell of the dried herbs wafts up.

- To this add the ground beef and sauté, stirring, until
the beef browns, breaking up any clumps.At this point remove as much or as little of the oil that the beef
renders.

- Add the tomatoes, the water (rinsing out the can in
which the tomatoes came), tomato paste, sugar, salt and pepper to the pot.Stir everything together and simmer over low
heat, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes to an hour, crushing the chunks of
tomato against the side of the pot with your wooden spoon.I sometimes let this go for even longer.You want the sauce to cook down, becoming
thick and pulpy, and the flavors of the sauce to meld into the meat.

- While the sauce is simmering (or even while you are
making it if you are more dexterous) get on with your mushrooms.Heat a large skillet over medium high
heat.Add a good glug of olive oil and
when the oil is hot add the mushrooms and the rest of the garlic.Add a scattering of salt and pepper and sauté
until the mushrooms soften and become golden.You want them to release their juices and then have those juices
evaporate so the mushrooms' flavors intensify.When done, add this to the tomato sauce and carry on cooking until the
sauce is done, tasting first to adjust the seasoning.

- Serve with grated parmesan cheese and garlic bread if
you want to be faithful to the P. Cruz way.

Some caveats here.I know the thought of adding sugar to pasta sauce may seem scandalous
to some, and I don’t usually, but this is the P. Cruz way and I am not one to
stand between my husband and his nostalgia.Besides, I honestly think that, used scrupulously, a little sugar can
take the edge of canned tomatoes, you just need to strike a good balance.In any case, if it goes against your beliefs,
by all means leave it out.

The Italian seasoning, that little bottle of mixed dried
herbs by McCormick that you can find in most supermarkets, is also essential to
the spirit of the original dish.So yes,
fresh herbs are fabulous, and as far as dried herb/spice mixes are concerned
there are more sophisticated ones, but, again, we are going for the taste of nostalgia
here.

All that being said, I must be honest and confess that I
couldn’t help make some adjustments.The
original was made with tomato sauce but I really, really prefer canned
tomatoes.Also, the original used canned
mushrooms but since we can get such great fresh ones locally (I get
mine from the Ministry of Mushrooms), and fresh are really so much better than
canned, I use fresh here.

So I supposed I wasn’t that diligent about strictly adhering
to tradition.Oh well.We make our own marks on recipes.Perhaps little C will add her own tweaks one
day.I hope she does.In the meantime I am content to stir this pot
and thankful to enjoy childhood a second time around.

Note added July 22, 2014: Just made a larger batch of this and it came out so well. I used almost 1 kilo of ground meat (from Kitayama meatshop...their meat is awesome!) and 3 400-gram cans chopped/crushed tomatoes (also rinsing out with water and using it). I also added the fine dice of one small carrot while sautéing which I added some great flavor...and more nutrients. It came out fantastic and there was much applause on C's part :)

Yummy! You write so beautifully! I also like bolognese done the Pinoy way! I recently went to Bologna and of course tried Bolognese, and it was so beefy bordering on funky! And so, from that moment on, I have become loyal to the bolognese of my childhood. My mother adds a can of cream to her meat sauce which turns the sauce to a shade of brown. And yep, definitely some sugar to balance the sourness of the tomatoes!

Lovely writing (as always), plus a recipe that reflects what most of us look back fondly to in our childhood foodie memories. To this day, my husband is happy to have my version of this pasta dish when I get too lazy to cook (I always have this in the freezer). It makes me die a little that he grates his favorite processed cheese over it, but it makes him so happy so I just enjoy the fact that I can recreate such happy times for him, through the food I make :)

I like your blog. But are you able to eat all these stuff really? I am pregnant and right now i only eat three types of food: raw, cold and fried. I can't eat anything cooked - at all. I am a Muslim too, that means I never eat any kind of porc or bacon. Do you use chicken as part of breakfast sometimes?